Shamshad Cockcroft is a British physiologist and a professor of cell physiology in the Neuro, Physiology and Pharmacology Division of Biosciences at the UCL.[2][3] She has been a member of The Physiological Society since 1989.[4][5]
Cockcroft's research and work investigates intracellular lipid traffic, interfaces club and lipids in cell signalling and membrane traffic.[1][3] Her publications include: ATP induces nucleotide permeability in rat mast cells, Role of guanine nucleotide binding protein in the activation of polyphosphoinositide phosphodiesterase and Polyphosphoinositide phosphodiesterase: regulation by a novel guanine nucleotide binding protein, Gp.[8][9][10]
Cockcroft was awarded a fellowship from the Lister Institute in 1986 and established the Lipid Signalling Group at UCL.[5][7] She was previously Chair in Cell Biology at UCL and was awarded a programme grant by the Wellcome Trust.[5]
Cockcroft was born in Zanzibar, but moved to the United Kingdom aged 18 following the Zanzibar Revolution.[7] She faced problems when she tried to apply for university, having only four O-levels in Maths, English, British Constitution and Geography. She had to do her A-levels in a grammar school in the UK.[7] She was inspired to pursue a career in science by reading biographies of scientists, including William Harvey and Marie Curie.[7]
She is married to Laurence Cockcroft and has three children: Jasmine, Jacob and Joshua.[5]
